I have considered it. I generally don't like people who fly off the handle immediately.

I really like your radar analogy

I think you are missing point, not everyone is up for an inquisition at every new meeting. Using this method, people that agree with you might just move on, because they don't feel like probing you. You are turning away people that would agree with you just because they don't want to argue with you. You also haven't given any reason for them to even try'.

Or better example:

Person 1: I like Atlas Shrugged (secretly don't but use it as a test when meeting people)

Person 2: Amazing, I also like Atlas Shrugged (secretly don't, but don't want to argue with another Atlas Shrugged fan boy, so just nod head and agree, and just looking how to end conversation and move on).

I don't see how this isn't the filter still working. A polite end to the conversation and self-selection is just as useful to me as being scolded.

I've used the same test (simply reference Ayn Rand in a non-disparaging context when topical) and it's fantastic what the results are as far as actually finding independent, open, and prosocial people.

There's a narrow band of people that will actually give Rand a fair shot and treat her objectively without also mentioning that they're also in Mensa and into Agorism (the opposite and ironic red flags of slavishness to Objectivism).

With that narrow band of people you can have any conversation and explore any topic because they have their own thoughts! And I'd rather discover who is and isn't a member of that set early on.

In short, not a bug, will not fix.

So you want to also turn away the people that dismiss Ayn Rand too harshly?

So turn away the people really super into Ayn Rand, and also the people that dismiss her to quickly?

Kind of weeding out the Left and Right?

That is a narrow band.

I've seen some pretty smart people that react very negatively to Ayn Rand. Sometimes just as a reaction to the fan-boys of Rand that miss-interpret her and have made such a thin philosophy so popular.

It is possible for people that would give her a fair argument intellectually, but get tired of dealing with the fan-boys and not want to engage anymore.

Unfortunately, Rand has become part of the culture war, so it is hard to find anybody talking about her actual philosophy. But, guess that is the group you are finding.

Guilty. I like the narrow band of people who I can watch a football game with, and have it not be a chore.

Everything is so tiresome nowadays.

It's not filtering out the left and right specifically, but it is filtering out the people that have succumbed to stereotypy as their default heuristic and forget that a conversation is between two humans, not simply a consumerist/anti-consumerist call-and-response.

> Have you considered that someone who hears Atlas Shrugged is your favourite book might react similarly?

I'm not the author of the post you're replying to, but that line of reasoning reminds me of an hiring bias that I read a while ago: avoiding a bad hire is more important than getting good hire.

In this context this could mean that the tb_technical really cares about avoiding people with extreme viewpoints, even if that means missing a few people they might get along with.

> I'd be polite, but note you down as either an immature thinker or someone who likes to provoke. With a little more prodding, possibly also one of those people who has to be right about everything, and this is their hill.

Weirdly enough, to me (as a third person) it seems you're proving tb_technical's point anyway: you still have some strong views on the matter, you just would not express them. Still somebody that, according to tb_technical's writing, they wouldn't like to be friends with. The main difference here is that the feeling is reciprocated by you.

The more comments I read, the more tb_technical's idea sounds good.

> The more comments I read, the more tb_technical's idea sounds good.

Yeah, they're just doing a bit. A fairly tame bit for that matter. There's an expression "giving someone enough rope to hang themselves" that I think fits here.

Depending on crowd and delivery I might not clock it as a bit. But even someone earnestly answering Atlas Shrugged, they know what they're doing and that deserves at least a few followups. Probably a bit mischievous myself. "Oh, that's cool, because I always wanted to find someone I could ask why the statue is doing squats instead of shrugs?"

> In this context this could mean that the tb_technical really cares about avoiding people with extreme viewpoints, even if that means missing a few people they might get along with.

That's a defensible idea. Making friends with the wrong people can really mess up your life.

And yet, I keep reading about this epidemic of loneliness...

> Making friends with the wrong people can really mess up your life.

> And yet, I keep reading about this epidemic of loneliness...

Both things can be true at the same time, this is not a dichotomy.

At the same time, there's a old saying in my company that goes like "better alone than in bad company". Timeless wisdom, I guess.

On this matter, I was recently brought to pondering about the extinction of the so called "third place". The reasoning goes like this: people often used to have three places they attend the most: they home, their workplace, and the "third place".

The "third place" can be pretty much everything, and it's the place where socialising happen: for example, in many sitcoms it used to be some kind of bar/pub/restaurant: the McLaren's in HIMYM, "Arnold's" in Happy Days and another similar one whose name i can't remember in Friends. When I was a kid, it was a public park where we played soccer, and most kids just spent time there.

It seems this is going out of style or something?

Two things I noticed are:

- nowadays spending time in bars/pubs etc can get costly. Might be the general economic downturn, but it seems to be that going at the bar and having a beer or two used to be more accessible in the past (older folks are welcome to chime in and offer their perspective).

- pubs with larger university people tend to be more affordable, but the age band is quite restricted... Not formally, but somewhat implicitly.

Exactly. I agree with OP. I don't think Atlas Shrugged is the best book around.

But by using a negative to judge the response of the other people, the other people could just as easily be judging him.

Now both parties are looking down on each other. When really they agree.

If I met someone who said that any book was their favorite book, and then didn't remember anything about the book or had any value for the ideas that it advocated for, then I'd have to consider that person a bit of a manipulator.

Being disingenuous is just a bad first and only data point to give someone about yourself.

I’m going to note you down as a manipulator and not only keep myself away from you but anyone I care about.